


sang toi (mes rêves exsangues)

by amako



Series: ShikaSakuWeek Hanami 2020 [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, Alternate Universe - Sentinels and Guides Are Known, Bonding, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Friends, F/M, Family Bonding, Feral Behavior, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Intimacy, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Pack Bonding, Pack Dynamics, Pack Family, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Sentinel/Guide, Sentinel/Guide Bonding, Suicidal Thoughts, Team Bonding, Violence, also because they're a surprise for chapter 2, because they're coming in chapter 2, i hate that shit, other characters not mentioned in tags, this is NOT a/b/o
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:53:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23420041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amako/pseuds/amako
Summary: Unfortunately for her, because the Haruno Clan had a below average rate of birthing Sentinels, Sakura was never prepared to Awaken.It doesn't take long for Inoichi to find her once the screams start.
Relationships: Akimichi Chouji & Haruno Sakura, Akimichi Chouji & Haruno Sakura & Nara Shikamaru & Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura & Nara Shikamaru, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino, Haruno Sakura/Nara Shikamaru, Nara Shikaku/Nara Yoshino, Yamanaka Ino's Mother/Yamanaka Inoichi
Series: ShikaSakuWeek Hanami 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679485
Comments: 19
Kudos: 311
Collections: ShikaSaku Hanami 2020





	sang toi (mes rêves exsangues)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for ShikaSaku Week Hanami 2020 Day 4  
> Prompt 2: sang toi / without you and blood & you (it's a sort of pun in French)
> 
> also I kinda went wild and used lyrics from Mozart L'Opéra Rock, "Je dors sur des roses"
> 
> soooo I've always said I would one day write a Sentinel/Guide AU because, with Pacific Rim, it's probably my favourite AU ever. Well, here we are, the day is today. This has at least two parts, mostly written, I'm not completely done but it's in good shape. I adore Sentinel/Guide lore and rules and all that, so I had the time of my life writing this. You don't need to have seen the Sentinel TV show, btw, this is 100% neebie friendly.
> 
> Tell me what you think!!

When the Haruno Clan still existed, its rate of birthing Sentinels had been right below average. Sakura's great-grand mother was a Sentinel, and her great-uncle was a Guide, but that was about it in recent history. Maybe things could have been different, maybe there might have eventually been more Haruno Sentinels, more bonded pairs from the clan, but Sakura is the last Haruno.

The last of her clan, and yet, because the Haruno aren't Uchiha and they were not slaughtered by one of their own, the story isn't as juicy. Haruno Sakura of Clan Haruno is quietly whisked away to make room for the true stars of her generation, her inheritance frozen until she either turns sixteen or graduates from the Academy. And in the meantime, like a piece of meat on the fresh market, she's put up for guardianship at the mercy of someone's grace.

How lucky for her, then, that she met an heiress with kind eyes and a fierce tongue, who took one look at the soon-to-be orphan and decided that they were going to be best friends. How lucky for her that Ino had enough sway in her household to get her parents to give Sakura a chance.

Two days after the entire Haruno Clan disappeared on a hunting trip to fill their stocks for winter, Sakura steps inside her new bedroom with a door opening towards the inner garden of the Yamanaka main house.

Sakura sits on her new futon, looking at her belongings neatly stacked in boxes all around the room, and realizes with bleak, numb awareness that she wants to die.

It turns out, wanting to die is enough emotional turmoil to wake her Sentinel instincts. Unfortunately for her, because the Haruno Clan had a below average rate of birthing Sentinels, Sakura was never prepared to Awaken.

It doesn't take long for Inoichi to find her once the screams start.

* * *

Sakura wakes up in a muted, pale grey room, bundled up in blankets on the floor, in a corner. Immediately, the light burns her eyes and she winces, crying out in pain and putting her fists on her face to hide herself. She notices then that she's covered from head to toe, her hands in cotton gloves and her feet in warm socks, a scarf around her head covering her ears too.

She moves, trying to detangle herself from the blankets, but she flinches away at the noise they make. She feels horrible, like she's being attacked from every angle. Sakura wants to cry, but she does her best to swallow her tears, because she's a smart girl and she's almost certain that she knows what's happening. She might not have received the training to deal with an Awakening but she can recognize the signs easily enough.

She's a Sentinel, a fully-awake one if her overwhelming environment is to be believed.

Footsteps echo from the other side of the room's door, causing Sakura to jump on her feet. She instantly keels over, the deafening noise of the air being displaced when she moved hitting her like a sledgehammer.

On all four, she tries to control her ragged breathing, feeling like she's about to be crushed by the migraine that followed the horrible noise. She hears, like they're coming directly from insider her ears, the footsteps coming closer, until someone kneels in front of her.

It's a man, she can smell it, and it doesn't take her very long to recognize that it's Ino's father. He smells like the inside of a flower shop and the laundry soap Yamanaka-san makes herself, and a little bit like blood, too.

“Sakura-chan,” he whispers, which she appreciates dearly. “If I'm overwhelming you, I can leave, just nod your head and I'm gone. Shake it if I can stay and talk to you.”

She breathes in, trying to identify what's hurting her the most. When she's sure it's not him, she shakes her head, slight tremors coursing through her limbs.

“Okay, thank you, Sakura-chan. Do you know what's happening?”

She nods, not trusting her own mouth not to wreak havoc on her ears again.

“What's hurting you right now?”

She thinks for a moment about how to communicate what she needs, before remembering the few classes of sign languages they've already had in the Academy. _Listen_ is one of the first things they were taught, and it'll do for her purpose. Without moving, Sakura signs it a few times against the tatami covering the floor, the texture soothing against her hypersensitive skin.

“I have some earplugs for you, they won't cancel everything but they should help, and we'll still be able to talk. I'm putting them in front of you, I don't want to risk hurting you by accident.”

Sakura reaches with shaking hands, relieved when touching the waxy texture of the earplugs doesn't make her want to crawl inside herself. She rolls them between the tips of her fingers to warm them up and make them more malleable, then finally puts them inside her ears. Her sigh of relief is nicely muffled and she can finally sit, looking at Ino's father.

It's terrifying, how much she notices about him that she never would have before. She can count his lashes, hear the slightly raised beat of his heart, smell his wife on his neck and see the dried saliva she left on his cheek when she kissed him. She's not a baby, she knows that adults make love sometimes, but it frankly disgusts her to realize she can see the traces of intimacy on his skin. Something catches her ear and she frowns.

“Are you sick?” she asks, her voice far away, tolerable.

He jerks back, eyebrows raised. His heartbeat is wild, now. “Sakura, I- how many senses are Awakened?”

She bites her bottom lip. “All of them, I think. But touch is a little bit less strong, because the clothes only hurt a little.”

“They're not supposed to hurt at all, love. They're a special material, silk and wool in a blend that's supposed to be tolerated by Sentinels.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “It's really not bad, not as much as my ears or my eyes.” She tilts her head, a little smile coming to her lips. “You're really good at your job, Yamanaka-san. You're really sick, then?”

He sighs, laughing a little too. “I need to ask you to keep this a secret. I haven't told Ino yet and I don't want to until I absolutely have to. This is something you're going to have to learn, Sakura-chan. From now on, you have access to everyone's privacy, and you have to respect that.”

She nods, subdued at his serious tone. She looks down at her hands, her eyes zooming on the fine lines on her skin, able to count them. Sakura sighs, quiet and sad. She really doesn't want to be a Sentinel. She has a feeling she can't give it back, though.

* * *

For weeks, she's the talk of the village. Since the White Fang and Uzumaki Kushina's death, there hasn't been a single Sentinel in Konoha. The Hoshō are regarded with respect, even a bit of veneration. It is seen as a blessing that one has Awakened in Konoha, especially after the recent tragedies.

Sakura hates it.

Everyone is either treating her like she's made of glass, or like she's the second coming of the Shodaime or something. And that's without accounting for the people who avoid her like the plague because they're afraid she's going to read their mind or something and they have a dirty secret or something of the sort. They don't realize that by purposefully avoiding her, they're basically holding a neon sign that says _I have something to hide_.

The Yamanaka are really nice to her, even when she hears stuff she shouldn't, or blurt out things that are supposed to be secrets. Ino's mother replaced everything in the house to be Sentinel-friendly. There is fruit juice in glass bottles, a filter on the tap so no metal particles get in the water. Her cleaning products are chemical-free and don't have a scent. She donated all their bathroom stuff to other Yamanaka clansmen and bought scent-free soap, solid shampoo with only natural ingredients and no scent either and she also gave away all her perfume and makeup.

Sakura knows just how much time it took her, and that she's sad not to be wearing her favourite perfume anymore. She feels guilty to be such an inconvenience to the people who took her in. She's crying a lot, recently, and she's often angry too. She does her very best not to be, because she has a hard time calming her most intense emotions, and when she's angry, she ends up breaking stuff because she can't control her strength.

Sakura misses her clan, so much, every day. She misses her fathers' matching smile, her aunt's laughter and her uncle's steady, comforting presence. They all disappeared from her life so abruptly, and then she came online and now her entire life is a mess.

Through everything, there is one constant, though. Ino is here, unwavering, rooted in the ground like the Great Tree. Sakura loves her fiercely for it, for her support and love through it all. And with Ino, like any Ino before her, come Shikamaru and Chōji.

Sakura doesn't mind, honestly. She likes the boys, even if she's not really used to hang out with them. But they're nice and they don't mind that she can tell what they ate for breakfast or when they're lying. Chōji thinks it's awesome and Shikamaru takes her aside, the first day they see each other after her Awakening, and tells her he trusts her with his life and his brain, so she doesn't have to worry about his privacy.

Shikamaru has always been the smartest of them all, and it's exactly the words she needed to hear. She doesn't hug him, even if she wants to, because she doesn't have the best of grips on her senses yet, even if the people at the Sentinel Centre tell her it will come. The last thing she wants is to zone in on a bead of sweat on his temple or the smell of his shampoo and get stuck. The people at the Centre explained that zones are very dangerous, because if you don't have your Guide with you when one happens, you can stay stuck and go so deep in it that you might forget to breathe and die of asphyxiation.

Sakura doesn't want to die, and she doesn't have a Guide. Which, when you've come online, is about as good as a death sentence. So she doesn't hug Shikamaru.

She is eleven, a newly-Awakened sentinel, and she's put in Team 7 a month later.

* * *

Team 7 is a disaster.

It's a disaster on _several levels._ A team with a sentinel, a jinchūriki and the last Uchiha should be absolutely unstoppable. Instead, they're pathetic. And it all comes down to their teacher.

Inoichi pets Sakura's hair as she cries against his chest, trying to focus on calming his breathing because he doesn't want her to freak out if she thinks he's upset. Which he absolutely is, admittedly, but she doesn't need to know that. Not that he has much faith in his ability to control his own heartbeat, but he can always hope.

The poor girl swallows down a sob, wincing at the noise she's making. It's been over a year since her Awakening, and her senses have fully come online and settled now. But the Sentinel Centre did warn them that intense emotions would upset the precarious balance and cause zone outs and spikes that they would all need to learn how to deal with.

For now, Chōji acts as Sakura's temporary guide, being the one calm and empathetic enough in her friend group. Inoichi would also do, but he's not always available to help her, whereas Chōji sees her almost every day and, more often than not, every evening when the three InoShikaChō trios eat together. Each clan takes turns hosting the meal but, unless something comes up, they don't miss a day. And when, like right now, Sakura needs a guide to help her settle and reign her senses back in, she knows she can always come to him and he'll help her.

So for now, he hums quietly as he continues petting her hair, his touch a point for her to focus on as she calms down.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks, not even loud enough to qualify as a whisper.

She sniffs, her voice shaking. “K-Kakashi-sensei made us climb a tree. I already knew how to, so he told me to wait to the side while he was teaching Naruto and S-Sasuke. Then they started fighting and they chased each other so Kakashi-sensei went after them and he just _left me there_!” Her crying starts anew and Inoichi has to grit his teeth to keep his anger in, feeling for one brief second like a sentinel about to go feral.

“That absolute idiot child,” he growls, remembering a time when Hatake was a good shinobi and a good person, putting his comrades before anything. Maybe it's time someone remind him that Uchiha Obito and Nohara Rin are dead and buried and he has the responsibility of not just two, but three children, _including a newly-awakened sentinel, for fuck's sake_. Maybe it is time he remember that dead comrades don't count anymore and he should just _fucking let go._ Maybe it's time _Inoichi_ remind him what really counts.


End file.
